Erika Stucky

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Erika Stucky (2016 at Jazz im Palmengarten )

Erika Stucky (* 1962 in San Francisco , California ) is an American - Swiss jazz singer , musician, performer and accordionist .

Life

In 1907, Theodor Stucky, Erika Stucky's grandfather, decided to leave Upper Valais for North America. His son, Bruno Stucky, was trained as a butcher by the Palace Hotel in San Francisco for artistic buffet arrangements and the like. a. engaged in galas. As a fan of Connie Francis and the Rat Pack , he infected his daughter Erika early on with Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and other great American entertainers.

In the winter of 1971 the family returned to Europe because of their longing for the Alps and settled in the village of Mörel in Upper Valais . Erika Stucky began to yodel in traditional costume groups. At the age of 17 she sang the musical Hair in Brig , accompanied by a local big band, and took on all female roles. She then traveled through South America with a school friend for eight months and sang a mixture of Anglo-American folk / pop (Dylan, Joplin, Beatles) and rudimentary yodel on the street in original Valais weekday clothes. Back in Switzerland she took lessons at the school of the famous mime artist Dimitri in Ticino, from there she moved to Paris for two years to study jazz singing with Jean-Claude Briodin. She then completed her training as a theater actress at L'atelier Serge Martin (then in Paris, now Geneva). From Paris she first moved to Brooklyn and then to Lake Zurich, where she still lives today.

Career

In 1985 Erika Stucky co-founded The Sophisticrats, a female a cappella quartet plus double bass player. The band released the two albums Four Singers And Bass (1988) and We love you (1991), gave around 500 concerts in Europe and Africa and received several awards, including the Coup de Coeur (1988) from the city of Saint-Malo and the Prix ​​de L`Humour (1989). In 1991 Erika Stucky founded the quartet Bubble-Town with Marco Raoult, the genre of which she described as "fantasy folklore". In 1996 the debut album Don't Shoot Him was released .

In 1994 Stucky was invited by George Gruntz to perform as a solo singer in his Concert Jazz Band . Stucky toured Switzerland, Germany and Russia with the formation. Elvin Jones and Joe Henderson took part in the concert at the Berlin Jazz Festival . During the tour, the idea for the trio Mrs Bubble & Bones with the two American trombonists Art Baron and Ray Anderson arose in Saint Petersburg . The name of this formation, active since 1997, is derived from the trombones. Parallel to Bubbles & Bones, Stucky sang in the studio and live with the WDR Big Band Cologne in 1999 under the direction of George Gruntz alongside the Argentinian bandoneon virtuoso Dino Saluzzi . In 2001 she released her first album, Bubbles & Bones, on Traumton Records, with Gruntz and Saluzzi as "special guests".

In 2000 Stucky played the role of "Frau Gott" in Sibylle Berg's play Helges Leben at the Bochum theater for several months . Stucky also composed the music for the production with the Valais dialect pop singer Sina, who appears in the role of “Frau Tod”. Then the two began a collaboration that continues to this day under the name Stucky & Sina, with specially made Super 8 films on stage.

In 2001 Erika Stucky started a collaboration with the trio Roots of Communication, which has also continued to this day . It consists of the trombonists and alphorn players Robert Morgenthaler and Jean-Jacques Pedretti as well as the changing percussionists Lucas Niggli and Peter Horrisberger. In 2002 Stucky & Roots of Communication opened the Swiss Expo.02 in Murten . The BeJazz Winter Festival program booklet wrote about Stucky & Roots of Communication : “Together with Robert Morgenthaler's Trio, Erika Stucky is completely re-illuminating the musical styles of jazz, classical, pop and folk music and spanning a gripping arc from homely alpineism to urban nightmare. Roots of Communication play their own compositions and improvised sequences, inspired by jazz and classical music, as well as by Asian, African and European folk music. "

Erika Stucky 2003 at the St. Ingbert Jazz Festival

In 2004, Erika Stucky was invited by the pioneers of Swiss jazz, Christy Doran and Fredy Studer, to their Jimi Hendrix project, in which Jamaladeen Tacuma and Kim Clarke take turns playing electric bass, and Melvin Gibbs at times as well . The quartet has recorded two CDs so far and toured Europe and Canada for several years. In 2005 Stucky was hired by the industrial rock band Young Gods for a Woodstock project that premiered in September and hit international stages in the following years. The song If 6 Was 9 was released in 2008 on the album Knock On Wood . With The Young Gods, Handsome Hank, Lucas Niggli u. a. Stucky also produced her next album, Suicidal Yodels , which was released in 2007.

In 2006 Stucky took on the role of Ginger in the Essen production of Carla Bey's jazz opera Escalator Over The Hill (libretto by Paul Haines ). Bley himself sat at the piano at the concerts in the Essen Philharmonic . "Erika Stucky had a splendid stage appearance as a true connoisseur of the music from the time the Escalator was created , sang in a very simple and highly emotional way combined with a simple but impressive stage presence", commented Hans-Jürgen von Osterhausen in the jazz newspaper .

In 2007 Stucky was one of the three protagonists in Stefan Schwietert's documentary Heimatklänge (D, CH, A 2007), alongside the yodeler Noldi Alder and the vocal artist Christian Zehnder . As a follow-up project to Bubbles & Bones , she founded the Bubbles & Bangs formation in 2008 . Bangs stands for an increased rhythmic bite, which is primarily provided by the drummer Lucas Niggli, but also fired by the tuba virtuosos Jon Sass and Marc Unterstährer.

In 2010 Stucky sang in George Gruntz 'opera Milk & Honey at the Stadttheater Basel , for which Richard Wherlock created a ballet choreography. Martina Wohlthat noted in the NZZ : "The connection between music and dance would be all too loose if it weren't for the singer Erika Stucky, who rhythmically manipulates an iron shovel with a stick of wood and stoically seriousness, singing and yodelling to it." A special performance of the production took place in the summer of 2010 on the open air stage of the Villingen-Schwenningen Festival, with Gruntz, Stucky, Matthieu Michel , Andy Scherrer , Christy Doran and others. a. In the same year Erika Stucky performed Robert Morgenthaler's Roots of Communication in the Swiss pavilion at the Expo 2010 in Shanghai. In her performance she designed a contemporary vision of the musical traditions of the Swiss Confederation.

In 2011 Stucky and her producer Knut Jensen, with whom she has been working together since 2000, founded the Ping Pong project . It combined Stucky's voice and mini-accordion with Jensen's ukulele and notebook, and Stucky also showed her films live in Shanghai. That same year, Stucky took part in the Raindogs Revisited project , a tribute to Tom Waits that was even announced on his website. Artistically directed by David Coulter (The Pogues, Tom Waits & Robert Wilson The Black Rider , Gorillaz, Pete Townshend, Kronos Quartet and others), the ensemble included Stucky and others. a. Jane Birkin , Arthur H., Steve Nieve (keyboardist with Elvis Costello ), Tiger Lillies , Annie Clark aka St. Vincent .

After Raindogs Revisited ended , Stucky continued to work with some musicians from the production on her next album, Black Widow . It was recorded in 2012 with Michael Blair (Tom Waits, Lou Reed , Elvis Costello), David Coulter and Terry Edwards (Nick Cave, PJ Harvey) in Stockholm and London. After the album was released, the quartet gave concerts across Europe. Claude Müller wrote in the Lëtzebuerger Journal, among other things: "In a unique hymn to the diverse pop cultures of the last few decades, the vocalist conveyed an attitude towards life that is bursting with emotion and spontaneity and constantly conveyed a hint of protest movement."

In 2014 Erika Stucky developed the show Wally und die Sieben Geier , for which she worked with the Austrian brass band Da Blechhauf'n . In October 2016, Stucky opened the Swiss pavilion in Mexico City and worked on a joint performance with local mariachi musicians, which in turn was performed in the wooden pavilion in the city park.

On her album Papito , which was released in November 2017, Stucky presented a range of styles and sounds even for her own standards. In addition to their own songs, there are covers of titles written by Cole Porter , Steven Sondheim, Randy Newman and others. In terms of content, the songs deal in a broader sense with the relationship between daughters and fathers; on production she worked with avant-garde musician and producer FM Einheit . Seven members of the La Cetra Barockorchester Basel and countertenor Andreas Scholl are also involved; with him Stucky interprets, among other things, the song Caruso by Lucio Dalla .

In March 2019, Stucky appeared in Didon & Enee Remembered at the Opéra de Lyon , a co-production with the Opera Vlaanderen and the Stuttgart State Opera in partnership with the Ruhrtriennale . The play was performed from August 28 to 31, 2019 as part of the Ruhrtriennale in the power center / blower hall in the Duisburg-Nord landscape park . David Martons staged a collage from the opera by Henry Purcell with compositions by guitarist Kalle Kalima . Stucky convinced Sascha Westphal from Nachtkritik.de with “wonderfully exaggerated (show) appearances as a magician and in the role of the goddess Venus added by Marton”, Stucky was also praised by the Bonner Generalanzeiger and Ursula Decker-Bönniger in Klassik.com: “ The star of the evening is the all-round artist Erika Stucky, who casts the audience under its spell as a witch with an effective performance and virtuoso language improvisations. "

Prizes and awards

In 1996 Stucky received the Swiss Small Art Prize for Bubble Town . In 1998/99 she was funded by the City of Zurich with a year of work. In 2010 she received the Valais Culture Prize, in 2014 a Swiss Music Prize and in 2017 the recognition prize of the Canton of Zurich for the album Papito . In 2020 she was awarded the Swiss Grand Prix for Music .

Discographic notes

  • We Love You , The Sophisticrats, FunKey, CH 1990
  • Bubbles & Bones , Traumton Records , 2001, with George Gruntz and Dino Saluzzi as special guests
  • Lovebites , Traumton Records, 2003, with Jon Sass, Ray Anderson, Bertl Mütter, Lew Soloff, Matt Perrine, Knut Jensen and Strings: Darja Albiker, Laura Volkwein, Angelika Yoo
  • Jimi (Doran, Stucky, Studer, Clarke), Double Moon Records , 2005
  • Princess , Traumton Records, 2005
  • Suicidal Yodels , Traumton Records, 2007
  • Stucky Live 1985-2010. , Traumton Records, 2011
  • Black Widow , Traumton Records, 2013
  • Call Me Helium (Doran, Stucky, Studer, Tacuma), Double Moon Records, 2015
  • Papito , Traumton Records, 2017

Web links

Commons : Erika Stucky  - collection of pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b c REVIEWS / DOCUMENTS. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  2. ↑ bands. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  3. ↑ Biography: Clara Buntin. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  4. ^ Radio Swiss Jazz - Music Database - Title . ( radioswissjazz.ch [accessed on November 21, 2019]).
  5. ^ Berliner Festspiele: Berliner Festspiele - Jazzfest Berlin: Artist archive 1964 to 2014. Accessed on November 21, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Helge's life. July 8, 2014, accessed November 21, 2019 .
  7. ↑ THE RED MOVIE - ERIKA STUCKY + SINA. Retrieved on November 21, 2019 (German).
  8. ↑ SWI swissinfo.ch, a branch of the Swiss Broadcasting Corporation: Expo.02 with 13 composers. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  9. ↑ BeJazz, Könizstrasse 161, CH-3097 Bern-Liebefeld: Erika Stucky & Roots of Communication - 4th BeJazz Winter Festival 2005. Accessed on November 21, 2019 .
  10. ↑ Stucky Studer Doran play Hendrix. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  11. ↑ THE YOUNG GODS PLAY WOODSTOCK - Willisau Jazz Archive. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  12. ↑ THE YOUNG GODS-ERIKA STUCKY-IF 6 WAS 9- LIVE AT "MOODS". Retrieved on November 21, 2019 (German).
  13. ↑ artarium: The Young Gods play Woodstock. September 10, 2019, accessed on November 21, 2019 (German).
  14. ↑ If 6 Was 9 by The Young Gods feat. Erika Stucky on WhoSampled. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  15. ↑ EOTH Escalator Over The Hill Carla Bley "WHY". Retrieved on November 21, 2019 (German).
  16. ↑ EOTH Escalator Over The Hill Carla Bley's Opera "Holliday in Risk". Retrieved on November 21, 2019 (German).
  17. ↑ Jazzzeitung 2006/07: reports, Carla Bley and the "Escalator over the Hill" in Essen. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  18. ↑ Heimatklänge (CH / DE 2006/2007) - German trailer. Retrieved on November 21, 2019 (German).
  19. ↑ Badische Zeitung: Your instrument is the voice - Rock & Pop - Badische Zeitung. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  20. ↑ Weird folklore | NZZ . April 25, 2010, ISSN  0376-6829 ( nzz.ch [accessed November 21, 2019]).
  21. ^ Milk and Honey - Villingen-Schwenningen. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  22. ↑ PRO HELVETIA - THE FOUNDATION: Newsletter 06/2010. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  23. ^ Robert Morgenthaler: BIOGRAPHY | ROBERT MORGENTHALER. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  24. ^ Erika Stucky, "Union Square," Raindogs Revisited at the Barbican. Retrieved on November 21, 2019 (German).
  25. ^ Ian Gittins: Rain Dogs Revisited - review . In: The Guardian . July 14, 2011, ISSN  0261-3077 ( theguardian.com [accessed November 21, 2019]).
  26. ^ Swiss Music Export »Erika Stucky's seventh album“ Black Widow ”on Berlin's Traumton Records. Retrieved on November 21, 2019 (German).
  27. ↑ Black widow in top form. Retrieved on November 21, 2019 (German).
  28. ↑ There Blechhauf'n. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  29. ↑ Erika Stucky in Mannheim: Bird ecstasies in the high mountains. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  30. ↑ Abre mañana pabellón suizo. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  31. ↑ STUCKY + VILLA MARIA MARIACHIS. Retrieved on November 21, 2019 (German).
  32. ↑ ::: Traumton Records :::. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  33. ↑ Didon & Enée, remembered. Retrieved November 21, 2019 (French).
  34. ↑ Peppered: DIDO AND AENEAS, REMEMBERED | Ruhrtriennale. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  35. ^ Sascha Westphal: Dido and Aeneas, Remembered - Ruhrtriennale - David Marton and Kalle Kalima present their overwriting of Henry Purcell's first opera in Duisburg in the Kraftzentrale. Retrieved on November 21, 2019 (German).
  36. ^ Bernhard Hartmann: Premiere at the Ruhrtriennale: "Dido And Aeneas" in the Duisburg power center. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  37. ↑ klassik.com: Current reviews, critiques and reviews from concerts and operas. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  38. ^ Awards - City of Zurich. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  39. ↑ Erika Stucky receives Valais culture award. In: Swissinfo . July 2, 2010.
  40. ↑ Erika Stucky :: Swiss Music Prize. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  41. ↑ Acknowledgments for music. Retrieved November 21, 2019 .
  42. ↑ Erika Stucky receives the Swiss Grand Prix Music 2020. In: Neue Zürcher Zeitung . July 14, 2020, accessed July 27, 2020 .
  43. ↑ Release Papito 2017 , Traumton Records, accessed September 26, 2017
personal data
SURNAME Stucky, Erika
BRIEF DESCRIPTION American-Swiss jazz singer, musician, performer and accordionist
DATE OF BIRTH 1962
PLACE OF BIRTH San Francisco , California